5 Signs You Need a New Website

If you have a personal or business website that was created years ago, it might be time to consider an upgrade. Especially if you’re noticing that it doesn’t perform as well as it used to, loads slowly, or crashes. 

This could be due to many reasons, such as bad hosting, a broken website theme, or simply a slow internet connection. However, more often than not, this is because your website is old, in which case you should seriously consider getting a new one. 

To figure out whether it’s time for you to build a new website, let’s look at the five pointers below. If these problems sound familiar, we strongly recommend you start putting some budget aside for a new site.

1. Your Bounce Rate Is High

The bounce rate of your website shows how many people leave your site shortly after entering, without performing any actions, like clicking on a button or visiting another page. 

An average bounce rate falls between 41% and 55%, with anything higher considered high.

High bounce rate could be caused by:

• Non-responsive design. If people visit your site using their mobile devices, and your website is not designed to accommodate smaller screens, it won’t load correctly and be very difficult to use.
• Slow loading time. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of people will leave.
• Bad site navigation. Your menu should be easy to find and navigate. If people cannot find what they’re looking for easily, they won’t stick around.
• Over-encumbered web design. If your website is packed with lots of different content, colors, and is generally over-encumbered, it will take longer to load and be harder to navigate. More is not always better.
• Errors. Any type of error leads directly to an increased bounce rate. You cannot expect people to stay if your website is broken.

2. It Doesn’t Rank on Search Engines

SEO (search engine optimization) is a collection of techniques that improve your website’s ranking on search engines. Meaning, when people enter a search query into the search engine, your website may appear higher within the SERPs (search engine result pages), leading to more traffic.

Check how well your website is being ranked by using tools like Semrush and Ahrefs. If it’s ranked poorly, look into these aspects of your website:

• Unoptimized content. Optimizing all content on your website is guaranteed to improve your SEO ranking. Consider writing about topics that are currently relevant and in demand, including relevant keywords, and resizing your large images. 
• Slow loading time. A website that loads slowly will be ranked worse by Google. 
• High bounce rate. If your bounce rate is high, search engines will think the content on your site is not relevant or of bad quality. Therefore, it won’t show up to people that are searching for relevant content.
• No additional SEO efforts. If you don’t write meta descriptions, use alt texts, and have long URLs, your website’s ranking won’t be as good. SEO efforts are a must if you want to appear high up on the SERPs.

3. Your Conversion Rate Is Low

Conversion rate is calculated by taking the total number of visits to your site and comparing it to the number of conversions it had. A successful conversion could be someone making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or performing any other action you want your visitor to perform.

The average conversion rate depends on the niche and the industry of business, but it’s estimated to be 2.27% for the eCommerce market. If your conversion rate is lower than that, it could be a sign that your website needs an update.

Low conversion rates could be due to:

• Complicated checkout process. Make sure to use Google Auto-fill and ask only for the necessary information. Make the process as easy and fast as possible, as otherwise, most people will simply abandon their carts.
• Non-competitive pricing. Conduct thorough competition research to see whether you’re offering your products or services at competitive prices. If you charge too much, people will go to someone that offers the same thing for a smaller price. If you charge too little, people will start doubting the legitimacy of your business.
• Untrustworthy site design. If your site design is outdated, cluttered, and not optimized for mobile devices, it can negatively affect your conversion rates. People don’t trust businesses that don’t invest in their brand image.
• Slow loading times. If your checkout page takes too long to load, people will leave. Customers grow impatient very quickly when shopping online, so make sure your website loads fast.
• Bad copy. Product descriptions have a significant effect on conversion rates. They’re what let your potential customer decide whether your product will solve their issues or not. If the copy on your website is poorly written, it won’t convert.

4. It Looks Outdated

If your website gives off 90s vibes and contains too many bright colors and different fonts, it will negatively affect your branding. After all, if you don’t make sure your website is up to date, who’s to say that your products or services are?

An outdated website can have a bigger negative effect on your business than you may think. Here are some areas that may be cause for concern:

• Browser compatibility. If your website hasn’t been updated in a long time, it might be incompatible with some browsers. Meaning, it will appear broken when potential customers will try to access it.
• Website security. If your site was created years ago, it might not have the required security to ensure your and your customer’s data safety. Check if your website has an SSL certificate and other security features.
• Copyright stamp. Check to see what date your copyright states at the bottom of your site. If it’s anything below the current year, it’s outdated.
• Flash. There was a time when most websites were Flash-based. Now, Flash is a very outdated software that is no longer used. 
• Overall web design. We all know what a modern and up-to-date web design looks like. It’s clean, easy to navigate, and gives off a professional look. If you don’t feel like your website matches this description, it most likely needs an upgrade.

5. Your Competitors Have Better Websites

Check your direct and indirect competitors. What kind of websites do they have? And most importantly, are their sites up-to-date? Are they better than yours?

If you feel like the answer to your question is “yes”, this is a clear sign that you need a new website. After all, if you feel like your competitors’ websites are better, so does your target market. Meaning, they will purchase from them before you.

How to Create a New Website

If you have come to the conclusion that you need a new site, you’ll first need to decide on the platform you’ll build it with. Then, you’ll have to look into the best options for web hosting, as it’s what will ensure your site is accessible online. 

Here at Hostinger, we offer a variety of different web hosting types, depending on how big your new website will be and how much traffic you expect to receive. 

If your business site will be pretty basic and contains no complex design elements, shared hosting, starting at $2.99/month, will be more than enough. 

If you’d rather have the option of easily adapting the number of resources you get because your new website is expected to grow fast, look into the best cloud hosting solutions for you, which starts at $7.99/month.

Whatever your web hosting needs, we’ll have you covered – one less thing for you to worry about.